The 6 Best Pig Superheroes Who Have Skin in the Game

The Super Bowl is this weekend and, therefore, I wanted to do a List of Six to mark the occasion. But considering I’ve already done a list of sports-themed superheroes, what was I supposed to do next? I don’t know sports ball!

But I do love me some bacon, ham and pork chops! Which all come from a wonderful, magical animal!

I never cared for Spider-Pig

Get it? Pig superheroes? Footballs are nicknamed ‘pigskin’? It fits. Trust me, it fits. And like most good animals, there’s a healthy number of porcine-based comic book characters. So in honor of all the Super Bowl tailgating parties this weekend, join me after the jump for all the best oinkers!

6. The Boar Brothers

Where’d they get octopus?

Remember the angry gamma poodle monster from the first Hulk movie? Of course you do! Well its comic book equivalent is sort of The Boar Brothers, a couple of gamma-irradiated boars who turned into walking, talking, Hulk-fighting behemoths! In a story where Bruce Banner was separated from the Hulk, he started performing gamma experiments to try and recreate the Hulk, and 26 and 27 were the numbers assigned to the successful boar mutants. These fellas got into a tussle with the real Hulk, only to get smashed, like everyone who goes up against the Jade Giant.

5. Boar

Buys his pants from the same place as Hulk

Giant animal monster men are a big hit in comics! You’ve got people like Rhino, Hippo and Mammomax (who will one day be on my list of elephant-based superheroes). And you’ve also got a fella like Boar. Never heard of Boar? Of course not! He appeared in a single issue of a short Beta Ray Bill mini-series in order to give Bill and Spider-Man somebody to fight (of course Spider-Man made an obligatory cameo). Boar was on the run from the cops when he crashed his car to avoid hitting a dazed Bill. Then he transformed into the monster you see before you, promptly getting his big, brown butt whooped. At least he’s rocking a sweet mohawk.

4. Pig-Iron

Porky’s far more successful cousin

Now that is a damn good pun. Pig iron is a high-carbon form of iron used for metalworking. While Pig-Iron is a super-strong, super-tough metallic superpig and a member of the Zoo Crew! His real name is Peter Porkchops, which isn’t that great of a pun, and he debuted all the way back in 1947, because anthropomorphic cartoon animals are a vibrant part of our cultural history. Peter Porkchops fell into a smelting pot with a strange meteor and emerged as the rough and tumble Pig-Iron, joining Captain Carrot, Yankee Poodle, Alley-Kat-Abra and the rest of the Zoo Crew in their wacky antics.

3. Spider-Ham

Soon to be starring alongside Howard the Duck

This is not as good of a pun, but still pretty cool. Spider-Ham is Spider-Man as a cartoon pig. Seems simple enough, especially for 1983. Just tell a bunch of parody stories with other, similarly pun-named Marvel characters and you’ve got yourself a solid one-shot. Ducktor Doom, anyone? Black Catfish? But Spider-Ham has touched the hearts of just enough people to become a cult favorite, and he’s popped up now and again throughout the years. Most recently, Spider-Ham was brought into normal comic book continuity during Spider-Verse, when the Spider-Men of multiple dimensions teamed up to fight evil. So Spider-Ham is a prominent character in Spider-Man’s world these days. Go figure.

Not to be confused with Spider-Pig, as soon above.

2. Professor Pyg

He’s an artist

A creation of the legendary Grant Morrison, Professor Pyg is one of the newest members of Batman’s esteemed Rogues Gallery. He’s a psychotic surgeon who wants to make everybody beautiful, except that his idea of beauty is pretty grotesque. This guy ain’t right, as by design. Professor Pyg wears an ugly pig mask and likes to oink a lot, at least he did when he appeared in Batman: Arkham Knight. So the character has legs even beyond Morrison. Heck, he’s even made a few cartoon appearances! Sounds like Pyg is going to be grossing us out for a long time to come.

1. Razorback

Convoy!

If my blog accomplishes anything in this life, I hope it is to introduce more people to characters like Razorback. Buford T. Hollis is a mutant from Arkansas with the power to drive any vehicle, which he uses to pilot spaceships as an outer space trucker. He also wears a giant boar head, possibly just for kicks. Razorback is everything right about comic books. He’s a big, fun truck-driving mutant superhero who exists in the same universe as Captain America and Iron Man. If this guy doesn’t eventually get a cameo on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., I don’t know what they’re even doing over there.

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About Sean Ian Mills

Hello, this is Sean, the Henchman-4-Hire! By day I am a mild-mannered newspaper reporter in Central New York, and by the rest of the day I'm a pretty big geek when it comes to video games, comic books, movies, cartoons and more.